Starved for Hope
by Gold Eyed Girl
Summary: She lives in a forgotten place with little food, and cares for her orphaned sister. All that keeps her going is hope for a better day. Will help ever come? Inspired by World Vision's 30 Hour Famine
1. Chapter 1

**This is a story I wrote for a school contest (I don't know the results yet, sorry) It isn't strictly Twilight, but if you want to be picky just imagine that the girl is Bella, I couldn't think of a fitting name. This story moved something deep within me, because it's true. There are millions of children in the world who will go to bed with empty stomachs, and I'm proud that I'm going to be able to do something to help. There's more information about that at the bottom, I'll let you get to reading now.**

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**Starved for Hope**

It was one of many nights I went to bed hungry. I had been waiting in line for the meager allowances of food that were available since dawn, but everyone was hungry, and none remained by the time my turn came.

I trudged downheartedly back to the hut, where I was greeted by the enthusiastic and eager embrace of my little cousins and sister, their hands open for gifts I did not bring.

My aunt rose from her pallet at the far end of the rundown room, my youngest cousin in her arms. One glance at my discouraged face and hers fell, the dull hope leaving her eyes. She glanced down at the sleeping infant in concern, then back to the three other children who would be going another night with empty stomachs.

I felt horrid that there was nothing else I could do. I would wait in that dreadful line all night were I allowed, just to bring home what would only be enough to content one, and split it between us six. My baby sister hadn't eaten in over a week, myself longer, as I had given her my share. Though we lived with Aunt, I had cared for her since our parents deaths. And because Aunt had her own children to consider, I was the only one able to leave to wait in line, and pray that there may be enough.

All we had out in this forgotten place was water, and even that was only half clean. Still, it was just enough to keep us alive. After drinking my fill, I dipped a rag in the remains and scrubbed the little ones clean, barely able to keep my eyes open. I held the fatigue at bay long enough to dry them before collapsing on the mat I shared with my sister, her frail body curling into mine as I wrapped my arms protectively around her in a fertile attempt to shield her from the cold air that crept into the room and seemed to chill one to the bone marrow. My eyes drifted closed, and I allowed my mind a short rest.

I woke a few hours later, and wrapped the threadbare coat around my shoulders before leaving the hut. Perhaps today would be better. I had to hope.

**Inspired by World Visions' 30 Hour Famine**

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**That's what I entered in the contest, along with one more story about a girl in a car wreck, although I had to shorten both, the maximum word limit was 250, and both had in the 300s. If you guys want I'll post the other story and the shortened versions later.**

**Now, the Famine. What we're doing is today, Friday the 6th, I'm going to my church at 8 pm, and we won't eat for 30 hours (don't worry, we can drink water and fruit juice) Our goal is to raise funds and awareness for starving children all over the world. The government is going to quintuple (multiply by five) our money, and it costs $1 a day to support a child. My group decided it wasn't boastful to tell what we raised, so I'll say that so far I have over $200. That's going to be huge for the child (or 2!) who wouldn't be eating otherwise. You may not care, and if that's the case, I'm sad for you, but if you do care, then I pray that you'll find a way to do something about it! You can make a difference! I'll post more on Sunday, and tell you all about it! Stay tuned!**

**Love and blessings, Claire**


	2. About the Famine

**Here's the highlights of this weekend. Thanks to everyone who prayed, you're all amazing!**

The Famine has come and gone, and was completely and in all ways amazing. I've been asked many times and I honestly can't say if I liked the Real. Life. exhibit or the Chris Tomlin concert better. Let me just say, if you're offered a chance to go to Real. Life., don't pass it up. For those who don't know, it's an organization that helps people living in less fortunate settings than ours.

The most powerful thing I saw was their tsunami model. It was absolutely huge, and the sign read 'This wall is 25 feet. The first wave that hit these people was 30 feet. The second was 75-90 feet.' that to me, was profound. But that was only the most powerful thing to _see_. It was definitely not the one that really opened my eyes.

Yes, the tsunami was tragic, but as I walked through the different rooms, the exhibit that really hit me (seriously, it felt like someone took a sledgehammer to my skull!) was the war in India- the child soldiers, girls taken as sex slaves, 7 year olds forced to kill their own parents, those same kids drugged (like hard heroin drugged) to sleep so they wouldn't run off... They were put in the front line to take the bullets, if they ran, their own commanders shot them. So they grew knowing nothing but violence, and killed ruthlessly. I was in tears by the time I got out. I kept thinking _These children are my age. Many are younger. No one deserves that. Especially children. _And there was more. I could talk about it for hours, the hurricane victims, the war refugees, the Mexican garbage dumps, the starving, the sick, the hopeless...

We give them hope. That was the last exhibit. We, who have been blessed with so much, can help these people. I feel so blessed to be living here, and I'm glad that by fasting, _I_ made a difference. That's the power of one. There was a poem at the very end of the exhibit; it'll try to remember it.

I am only one

But I am one

I can't do everything

But I can do something

And because I cannot do everything

I will not hesitate to do the something I have been called to do.

Do you see how it gets wider each line? (it's supposed to anyway, the first part is my lack of memory) That's the "ripple effect". Like throwing a pebble into water, one person begins a small ripple, which gets bigger, and bigger, and becomes noticeable. "Start the ripple today" (Real. Life. banner by the pool you throw the stones in. I threw 2, one for Prayer, and one for Giving, sadly I'm too young to volunteer.) So please pray for these children, and realise how blessed you truly are.

Well, that doesn't leave much room for other things, so I'll only say a tiny bit about the concert. It was amazing, Bethany is so lucky that she got to go meet and greet Chris, and their music was incredible. I wanted a CD, but sadly I didn't have the cash, so Katie is going to lend me her's so I can get it on my iPod (she's awesome!!) That's all I think I'll say, besides I went totally crazy, and convinced Madison that I know How Great Is Our God in Russian when he sang a few lines of it, and I picked up the tones, so it sounded like I was singing the words! That was funny.

At 10 till 2 am (not counting day-light-savings time) we were all ready for food. I was hungry to the point where I knew I needed to, but it didn't feel like I could eat. That was the most painful time of it, through the rest we'd had distractions, conversations, and just fun, but at that point, we were just _so close._ That's when the pastor told us how it would work. We were going to break our fast the same way the people we were helping would most likely do it. I'll tell you more of what that means, but the first part was the discrimination. We were separated across the room, boy and girls. Then within those 2 groups we broke into 3 more, brown eyes, blues, and greens and hazel. All the while he's explaining the discrimination they faced, and then he turns and points at me "What color are your eyes?" I was a little taken aback, so I was a bit slow when I answered

"Um... kind of a green-grey..."

"Ok, now here's how it works," if you can imagine him using his dictator voice, you know that it's a pretty transparent act, but it just wasn't funny when you thought about how this is really how someone lives. "The green-grey eyed girls are the best. They're going to go line up at the front of the line, so they get their food first, and they can take as much as they want..." More of the dictator act, he places everyone in line, blue-eyed guys were last, and his son, who's my age, was in that group, it was kind of funny. Then he asks this "Now, how stupid is this?" Imagine the chorus of "very"s coming from us, and I was telling another leader that now I felt bad, because why should I be in front? I'm no where near the hungriest one here, I just had green-grey eyes. Some didn't mind as much, one of my friends was saying "I don't care, I'm hungry!"

We went downstairs, and took spots at the tables in the cafe, where there were nothing but bowels of rice. That's when I learned the rest of what our deal was. We would break our fast with one bowl of rice, and we would eat it outside using the utensils God gave us (hands). For me, I was barefoot, jacket-less, and i hadn't washed my hands since I had last used the restroom; at the concert 4 hours ago. That was pretty miserable, but we counted down the last 4 seconds, and grabbed our bowls of rice and headed out to the rain. The rice was a little dry, and there was no water, but it was the best I had ever eaten. I was shoveling it, and making sure not to drop a grain. It wasn't much, but it was food.

When everyone was back in they told us what happened next. They weren't really going to make us wait until 8:30 for a big breakfast, as the schedule said, there was cereal, muffins, and fruit upstairs. I was praising the Lord in a huge way. I didn't know what their plan was, obviously not to starve us, but I thought that the time slot that said "breakfast" was going to be that, and it was claimed to be rice, so you may be able to see where that came from. But the pastor did try to make it more real for us. When asked when we would eat the other food, he just replied "you never know when you'll get your next meal, so eat up now" this was before our rice.

I hope you're still awake! Thanks for reading, this was an amazing opportunity for me, and I'll be really happy for you if you decide it's something you want to do! if not, there are tons of ways to help those in need, you just have to find a way!

Love, Claire

**This was the blog post I submitted, so it's designed more for people who know everyone, and I left out all names and some information, but this should give you an idea of what we did. I hope this makes you want to act in some way, and if there's anything I can pray for you about, just send it in a review, anonymous ones are great. So have a great week, and just know that you guys are all so blessed! Love you all!**

**Claire**


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